Concern-Trolling Newspaper Outs Gun Owners

Last week, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, the Journal News in New York’s lower Hudson Valley published a map listing the names and locations of all the licensed handgun owners in the area. The rationale seems to be in this passage from the story:

Combined with laws that allow the purchase of rifles and shotguns without a permit, John Thompson, a program manager for Project SNUG at the Yonkers Family YMCA, said that leaves the public knowing little about the types of deadly weapons that might be right next door.

“I would love to know if someone next to me had guns. It makes me safer to know so I can deal with that,” said Thompson, whose group counsels youths against gun violence. “I might not choose to live there.”

The Atlantic’s reporter surveys the angry social-media reactions of area gun owners, and finds, unsurprisingly, that some of them are hysterical, paranoid, and enraged. I have to say that while the examples The Atlantic cites are crackpotty, I find myself more on their side than on the newspaper’s.

For one thing, I don’t for a second believe the newspaper’s idea was to inform its readers for the sake of greater safety. Given the timing and the public mood, it seems far more likely to me that its editors wanted to shame licensed handgun owners. Therefore, I think this project is a modified form of concern-trolling.

For another, I generally hate activists and journalists publicizing names and addresses of private citizens, especially amid an emotionally charged controversy. A few years back, some same-sex marriage activists in California created maps to the homes of Prop 8 supporters, using publicly available information. To underscore, they did not get this information illegally. As I recall, the Prop 8 backers had either donated money to the Prop 8 campaign, or signed a petition, or both. The point of the activism was to socially shame the anti-SSM people, and to make them feel threatened. If their friends shunned them, or protesters showed up in their driveways, or they went to bed at night afraid that someone might break in or do them harm … well, good, they deserved it (reasoned activists).

A big problem with this sort of thing is that it encourages vigilantism. Let’s say that there had been a gay-rights initiative in, I dunno, Alabama, and some group opposed to gay rights got its hands on a list of donors to GLAAD, or the Human Rights Campaign, or some other pro-gay group. What if they created a website listing maps to those donors’ homes? And what if some vigilantes decided to make life miserable for the people — gay or straight — who lived there?

Is that really the kind of country we want to live in? Similarly, I don’t believe these New York gun owners cited by the Journal News have a legal right to privacy, but I have to wonder what real good is done by publicizing their names and addresses in this way, especially in a time when the public is beside itself with grief over Newtown (which, for the Journal News, was a local story). Just because something is legal — as is publicizing these names and addresses, taken from publicly available sources — does not mean it’s a good idea.

I have always hated the tactic adopted by anti-abortion protesters, of showing up outside the homes of abortion doctors and staging demonstrations. I think the work abortion doctors do is repulsive and vile. But maintaining respect for the privacy of everyone, even those we consider wicked or some sort of threat to the common good, is necessary for the maintenance of civilized life. I don’t believe this is an absolute principle. There are cases when it’s more important to make this information public, as when a child sex offender moves into one’s neighborhood. But the presumption, in my view, must strongly rest with respecting the privacy of private citizens.

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36 Responses to Concern-Trolling Newspaper Outs Gun Owners

Two things: what would have been interesting would have been if the newspapers, having found out who was a registered gun owner, then contacted them to ask for their opinions of gun laws, mass shootings, etc. A peek into the minds of “New York’s gun owners” might have actually been informative.

The other thing is that the newspaper has just made it much easier to figure out which homes to target for burglary. I know that sounds a bit paranoid, but I have a friend from the East Coast who shared with me once that her old neighborhood was being terrorized by burglars. It had gotten so bad that some people were putting envelopes of cash on their front door with a note asking the theives to just take it and leave. She told me that she’s always felt safer living here in the midwest because although her family didn’t own any weapons, some of her neighbors did. Since so many people own guns here, but theives have no way of knowing which homes have weapons and which don’t home invasion is a much riskier proposition here. I don’t know if her assumptions about the prevalence of gun ownership and home invasion are correct, but that was certainly her perception.

Around here, they might be better off publishing a list of people who don’t have lcensed guns in the home. At which point someone would break into one of the unarmed homes and promptly get shot with an unregistered, granfatehred gun.

There is very little reason to publish names and addresses, except to shame people. At one level, I get the registered sex offender list. But it seems like that might have set a dangerous precedent.

It might be worth my loss of privacy not to have imbeciles like Mr. Thompson live near me. Frankly, I make no secret of owning guns and no apologies. I would have some concern for those neighbors that have now been exposed as unarmed by this callous nitwit who is incapable of processing reality.

I’d be more sympathetic to the privacy of handgun licensees if there weren’t so many vehicles with their bumpers plastered with NRA and gun company decals. “Warning: Driver carries only $20 worth of ammunition” comes to mind.

I am a little more sympathetic than you are to the idea that people who sign petitions and make donations to political campaigns ought to be prepared to be face the opinions of their neighbors on those subjects. That said, this is a truly dreadful idea. Among other things, it suggests to burglars what houses, when unoccupied during vacations, etc., might contain resellable firearms.

When lawmakers originally declared this (and other) data “publicly available”, they couldn’t imagine it would someday be instantaneously available to anyone on the planet. It’s one thing to make information available to any member of the public willing to trudge down to the courthouse, fill out forms, and wait. It’s something else entirely to deliver an entire govt. database on *every* affected citizen, then publish it worldwide – all in a week’s work.

The problem here has as much to do with the law needing an update in the digital age, as it is with the violations of citizens’ privacy by private businesses.

As for the latter, let’s try a thought-experiment; turning the tables. Imagine a map sponsored by FoxNews showing the names and home addresses of all food stamp recipients? Hey, it’s public information, right? Why do people think they have a right to privacy? Does anyone want to go down this path?

Victory drunk lefties really ought to be more considerate lest the tables be turned on them when (not if) their rivals on the right return to power. This is a very slippery slope.

Actually, public sex offender registries do zero good in protecting the public. They can make things worse by devoting huge amounts of law enforcement resources to do the useless work of maintaining the lists.

Many cops and prosecutors will admit this–as long as they aren’t being recorded or speaking on the record. One exception is that the association for prosecutors in Iowa took a strong stance against public registration a few years ago.

Sex offender registries are good for pretty much every non-sex offding criminal. They are also a boon for private criminal defense lawyers who get extra business dealing with registry issues.

On another one of your points, I think public shaming of individusls is acceptable, but not threats of violence. And I can see your point about boycotts of private individuals. But do you support boycotts of businesses that provide services to abortion providers? I’ve seen organized boycotts of any construction company doing work for a clinic. Could you boycott a hospital that permits doctors to perform abortions when they deem appropriate? If so, we can boycott that hospital if it discriminates against its gay employees.

What about a businesse whose owner discriminates against, say, Jews, African Americans or gay people? Would you patronize a business that openly supported a group you thought was anti-Semitic? If not, why can’t I boycott a business run by an openly anti-gay rights owner?

If the Boy Scouts have the Right of Association to exclude gay people, the rest of us have the Right of Association to exclude people who wish to discriminate against gay people. If the Boy Scouts can boycott against gay people, supporters of gay rights can boycott the Boy Scouts and other opponents of gay rights.

All that said, in the end, there is no clear, unbiased line about when a businss boycott is acceptable in the abstract. It’s a balancing question, and one factor on the scale is the cause for which the boycott is called. And that’s why boycott discussions so often turn into arguments about the underlying issue.

I don’t believe these New York gun owners cited by the Journal News have a legal right to privacy…

You’re probably right, but this really irks me. I’m neither paranoid nor secretive, but frankly it’s nobody’s business what I have in my house, especially if I’ve acquired it legally.

There are so many more things going on in homes today that are exponentially more damaging to society than legal gun ownership (endless hours wasted on TV, video games, the Internet, etc.), yet they publish this as though gun owners are sex offenders or something? Sheesh!

And I can see your point about boycotts of private individuals. But do you support boycotts of businesses that provide services to abortion providers?

I’m not talking about boycotts. I’m talking about making people’s private info public, showing up on their doorsteps, or the sidewalk in front of their house, to protest them, or making that easy for others to do.

To support your position on protesting at home, I believe the US Supreme Court has held that local governments can ban picketing outside a person’s home. So if someone acted improperly based on the database, there would be at least some recourse.

I think the people who made this database public, as well as the gay rights group who made the anti-gay database, could have achieved the same legitimate result by making an alphabetical list broken down by zip code, or something like that.

But maintaining respect for the privacy of everyone, even those we consider wicked or some sort of threat to the common good, is necessary for the maintenance of civilized life.

Hear, hear! This is the kind of sound, rational, humane, conservative thinking that keeps me coming back here. I remember well the discussion here about the vigilante “outing” of Prop 8 voters. If I had been one of the neighbors of those people, I would have printed some yard signs saying “I support Jerry Jones’s exercise of his First Amendment rights.”

I even question posting the residence of convicted sex offenders on line. I believe many sex offenders need to be isolated from the general community for life, not necessarily in prison, but because its true they can’t control themselves. Still, some sex convictions are not of that nature, and for those who CAN pick up their life and live decently, I would leave them to the peace and quiet enjoyment of their residence too.

Victory drunk lefties really ought to be more considerate lest the tables be turned on them when (not if) their rivals on the right return to power.

This sounds to me more like a media outlet looking for attention rather than a liberal plot. As a liberal who favors a fairly restrictive level of gun control, it certainly doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

I agree that running this article with locations of registered gun owners seems like a bad idea. But the problem is that the line isn’t always quite so clear. And the bigger problem is that many people want to give at least a partial pass to the folks on their side of the ideological spectrum — something I believe Rod deserves credit for not doing by virtue of his opposition to protests at abortion doctors’ homes.

But exactly where is the line? Is it wrong to publish the name of a doctor who performs abortions and/or the clinic he does those abortions at? How about publishes “most wanted” lists of doctors with photographs of those doctors? Names with home addresses?

Same thing on the left. When those lists of Prop 8 supporters were published, what level of information was fair game? Names? Names and addresses? Why not photos, so we can spit at these people if we pass them in the street? And, sorry, but the excuse that the pro-lifers did it first doesn’t work as a rationalization for anything. Or, for that matter, that so-called “conservative” groups once sent people to hang around outside of gay bars with cameras to photograph the people coming and going from those bars.

For what it is worth, I think that publishing home addresses and/or photographs is definitely going to far. Lists of supporters? That’s a little iffier…because, on the one hand, I think that if someone donates a couple millions dollars to the National Organization for Marriage or to Planned Parenthood, that is reasonable information for public dissemination. If they donated $25 dollars, I think it is much less so…but I can’t give a specific dollar amount to draw the line at.

But I would argue that even if someone is singlehandedly funding an anti-gay group, abortion clinic, or whatever else it is that gets you upset, it is not right to picket at their personal residence.

I see this action a being of a different sort than the Prop 8 case. (And if one can’t stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen)

Donating money to a political cause is an inherently public act. One should have no expectation of anonymity. However owing a gun is a private act: nothing (inherently) public or political about it. Insofar as they have not run afoul of the law these gun owners should be able to keep their privacy.

I for one welcome the registry of woman who have had partial birth abortions in the past six years. After all I’ve seen a lot of those “keep your rosaries out of my ovaries” bumper stickers recently and that annoys me. Going off the Mr. Patrick standard that is all it takes to start violating privacy rights. The squawking from the left will make up for Holiday Pops’s season being over on XM.

“As for the latter, let’s try a thought-experiment; turning the tables. Imagine a map sponsored by FoxNews showing the names and home addresses of all food stamp recipients? Hey, it’s public information, right? Why do people think they have a right to privacy? Does anyone want to go down this path?”

We are already way down the path. My county and state government puts all kinds of “public information” on the Internet in an easy to find format. Details on all personal property owned (houses, cars, boats, etc); all legal documents in PDF or image format for property: how much a house cost, the loan amount; names of all individuals involved, cars owned; marriage licenses, etc.

I know single women that are concerned about safety because the house loan documents identify someone as married or single.

Years of civil court documents: divorce, domestic abuse, law suits, with considerable detail are on the Internet. A few years ago, social security numbers were supposed to be removed. Birthdates and address are usually available online.

A person can walk into the court house and ask to view any of the documents. For years, divorce documents require both parties social security number stamped all over the documents – a federal requirement to find people not paying child support. The records could also include bank statements and other financial information.

There are also many non-government sites that have all kinds of personal information, including cell phone numbers, addresses, relatives, other phone numbers, birth dates, etc.

I have not viewed the site for several years, but it use to contain considerable information from bankruptcy and other federal court actions: http://www.pacer.gov

Federal employee salaries are on the Internet, except for a view positions considered especially sensitive. Many states and counties also posted salaries of government workers.

I also know some single individuals that have checked out potential dates. The information is actually helpful in many situations, such as marriages, civil and criminal court cases, etc.

Actually you have two problems. If people know you have guns they may target you with a burglary when you are not home or try to get the drop on you when you drive up. With criminals only money and drugs rate higher than guns as something you want to steal.

The other problem is the one already mentioned – people can target you for burglary at any time knowing you will be defenseless.

The idea of posting the address of the guy who wrote the story is a good one. They should also let him know that they are going to post when he he leaves his house and when he arrives so the guy can worry about being burglarized all day long. Then maybe he will see what an imbecile he was.

I find it interesting that you question the propriety of publishing the names of registered gun owners. Anything of public record is supposed to published. The purpose of keeping public records is to inform the public. The appropriate question to ask may be why gun owners are required to register their guns with a public law enforcement agency, thereby requiring that ownership to be made a matter of public record.

That being said, I’m surprised that gun owners are disturbed to find their names published. I had always been told that those who are NOT gun owners would not want that fact made public, as it serves as an invitation to be a target for burglars and home invaders. It is the reason that newspapers now refrain from publishing the street addresses of those whose obituaries they publish. Professional burglars know the time of a person’s funeral is a time no one will be at their home.

You’re probably right [that these New York gun owners cited by the Journal News do not have a legal right to privacy] but this really irks me. I’m neither paranoid nor secretive, but frankly it’s nobody’s business what I have in my house, especially if I’ve acquired it legally.

On the other hand, to assert such a right in this case would mean to prosecute or sue the person who published the list; so I am not certain that for such a right to exist would be better.

Of course, one does need to wonder why such records need to be publicly available anyway.

I remember the Prop. 8 names and addresses list controversy. There were many perspectives on that one with many people on both sides of this culture war front finding themselves in agreement as to their support or opposition.
Personally, I think all such publications carry a very high risk of inciting the exact opposite reaction to that which the publishers desire. I also agree with that far-left, liberal, activist judge Justice Scalia who said, regarding just this in a Washington State case in which anti-gay petition signers’ names were published:
JUSTICE SCALIA: The person who requests a referendum is taking — when there’s a certain number of signatures required to achieve it is taking part in that.

And in light of the fact that for the first century of our existence, even voting was public — you either did it raising your hand or by voice, or later, you had a ballot that was very visibly red or blue so that people knew which party you were voting for — the fact is that running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage. And the First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate, or to take part in the legislative process.
I’m quoting from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/04/29/861859/-Justice-Scalia-Democracy-s-Not-For-Babies
and both the court transcripts and the final decision are very worthwhile reading.

Now, to be sure, Justice Scalia was provoked by an unusually arrogant conservative Christian who was lecturing the Bench (you know you’re acting like a Sadducee when Justice Scalia takes a more liberal view than you do).

In the end, it’s all just another skirmish in one battle-front of the culture wars. That it happens to expose the hypocrisy of liberals and conservatives is, perhaps, a good thing.
We liberals tend to forget how fearful and insecure freedom makes you conservatives.
You conservatives tend to forget that the First Amendment also protects religious belief and public expression which is not ultra-conservative Christian and ultra-far right politically.

I really don’t think publishing the gun owners’ names and addresses serves any legitimate journalistic purpose (and that’s different than the state, city, etc. publishing information on its own website). I love Sunshine Week, but I think those types of things should stick to public officials and public figures.

Where I live (Washington, DC) I don’t think my neighbors have guns. ‘Round here we prevent burglary with a home alarm system or a noisy dog. I don’t think a gun is necesary to to prevent home invasion.

This is the grossest negligence of reporting I have ever heard in my life. Not only is it a total invasion of privacy. But also puts the public at harms way letting criminals know exactly who does not own a gun or a way to defend themselves from attack. This reporter and any other reporters should not only be sued by class action but have their personal name address and phone numbers printed as well just to see how stupid their reporting of this subject is and how irresponsible it is to publicly out gun owners. What’s next public outings of homosexuals, drug dealers, undercover police. I hope you are happy putting the public in harms way and when the first one dies it will be on you’re conscience and you will have to live with fact that you caused their deaths and attacks due to your irresposible reporting. Find something worthwhile to report on. This is my promise I am a proud gun owner and if I find my personal information listed I will spen every dollar I have as well as sponsorship from every gun owner I know, which is thousands, to make sure your personal information is outed as well so then you can be the one looking over your shoulder every single time you leave your home or work or even to get your latte or food from your local grocer to see Joe you feel.